Crazy Lawsuit Game

In honor of Black Friday, J and I eschewed our consumer responsibilities and went hiking. We did a loop of about 5 miles, it was moist, cool and very nice. One section of trail was actually one of the earliest roads between North and South Carolina. I haven't heard any stories of Black Friday deaths or injuries around here but I haven't been looking for them either.

Cynical Chris found a few: Xbox Wal-Mart scramble, and the death of a Wal-Mart worker who was trampled to death by maniacal bargain shoppers. So please keep the family of Jdimytai Damour, 34, in your thoughts.

Also keep everyone in Mumbai in your thoughts as they deal with the recent terror attacks. Photos from The Big Picture.

We did go shopping a bit on Saturday and we didn't even have to kill anyone.

Labels: Cynical Chris, hiking, obituary, Thanksgiving

We bought some delicious cranberry cheddar from Whole Foods (via Vermont) in order to make fondue for a late anniversary dinner. We never got around to it but that should happen this week sometime.

I missed an autocross to write yesterday. It hurt but I performed quality work and am now closer to finishing and graduating.

I present in group meeting today and will show various positive results.

A co-worker, his wife, his wife's sister, her man, J and I all went hiking on Saturday. It was nice. I miss camping though. I would've loved to stay near our final destination, pitch a tent, scrounge for firewood, cook dinner over a fire, lay down, look at the stars and sleep in my comfy warm sleeping bag, instead of hiking back down the mountain, getting into a car and eating chicken fingers from Guthries.

Real post and pictures coming later this week. Feliz Monday everyone!

Labels: autocross, hiking, weekend

I did zero exciting things for Halloween.

I rode my bike to school twice this week, drove the other 3.

Writing is still coming along and it will come along much more tomorrow bright and earlyish.

We're hiking somewhere on Sunday.

I wrote at home today and it was very nice. The cats enjoyed it and I did too until the cats got on my nerves with their constant attention cravings.

J and I really enjoyed the university's climbing wall competition on Thursday because they put up all new routes and problems. Of course Fall Break is Monday and Tuesday so we won't be able to climb again for free until next Thursday. Jerks.

I'm going to go upstairs and get some sleep before writing tomorrow and then some college football, the Georgia/Florida game to be specific.

Hopefully I'll have some election coverage and my voting preview on Monday. Mostly local but I'll also highlight some big ballot initiatives around the country.

Labels: bicycle, football, hiking, politics, writing

J and I conquered Table Rock Mountain (3124 feet) yesterday. It's an elevation change of 1946 feet from the nature center where the Table Rock Trail starts. It is of course in Table Rock State Park, right off scenic SC 11. The trailhead sign says to allot between 2 and 3 hours one way. We did it in just under 2 hours. For reference a particularly in shape and virile Russian faculty member did it in 1.5 hours. We had lunch overlooking trees as far as you could see.

Yes my legs are a tad sore today, not as bad as I was expecting halfway up though. I also rode my "new to me" bike into work today. I paid $40 for a used Specialized Hard Rock and it's in pretty good shape. It could probably use some new tires and a decent cleaning but we can worry about that later. The derailleurs (metal things that change gears, pronounced de-rail-yours, thanks Clemson Cyclery!) work pretty well and I was shifting gears like mad.

The traffic was fairly heavy and I rode on the sidewalk for a bit but decided I should use the bike lanes and force the traffic to acknowledge my presence. Yes I was wearing a helmet. I would rather not but J told me horrible head injury statistics and I like my melon in one piece, plus it's another use for my all purpose skiing/climbing/bicycling helmet.

I need to work on luggage carrying capacity though. Ideally I would like to ride to the grocery store and pretty much anywhere in a 2 mile radius and the laptop, lunch and some papers pretty much maxed out my backpack. We'll see. It's okay for now and I need to prove to myself that I will use it regularly before I go dropping money into it. The locking chain and cordless air compressor I bought about equal the cost of the bike but I can use the air compressor for the car too so that evens out.

The last F1 race of the 2008 season is in Sao Paolo, Brazil which means it will be on at a reasonable hour! I'm guessing 11 am or noon on Sunday. The driver's championship is almost locked up by Lewis Hamilton but he has to finish the race Sunday in a decent position and Felipe Massa must win to even have a chance. Good thing Felipe likes racing in front of his home crowd.

Hope everyone has a great week!

Labels: bicycle, F1, hiking

We've had a bit of life-changing drama around the chemistry department recently. Two married continuing education graduate students, the wife in our dept. and the husband in some sort of engineering, joined the university last year sometime. Last Monday his body was found in his lab suspended by a cord around his neck. It was initially ruled a suicide but the wife suspects foul play. In fact, one of my labmates is working with the guy who actually cut him down and he said, "Something looked fishy," so I'll keep you posted with developments as I get them but please keep his wife and 12 yr. old daughter in your thoughts as they struggle through this awful and confusing time.

My parents were in town this weekend and we all had a good time. J and I picked them up at the bus station, after first going to where the bus station used to be then calling the cell phone on the bus that my mom borrowed and getting the directions of "I see Chili's and Wal-Mart" and luckily being a small town and knowing roughly where they were. Picked them up and ate dinner back in Clemson. I apologized for the squeaks and rattles and squealing belt but that's another post for another time. We get back home and talk and relax and enjoy each other's company. Saturday we wake up, grab some breakfast and then head off to our adventures! We drove up here again to hike to the waterfall lookout that J and I found a few years ago. Then we were ravenously hungry and we headed back down the mountain to try and eat at Sweet Basil, the most delicious Thai place in SC, but they close from 2:30-5 and we literally arrived 5 minutes too late. NOOOOOOOOOOOO! So we ate at Moe's which was very good in a non-curry and coconut milk kind of way. With full bellies and feeling very satisfied, we headed over to J's new building! Her company is moving to a fancy pants new building instead of their converted church cafeteria where they are now. From there it was off to Pelzer, SC. What's in Pelzer you ask? I will tell you. Just the happiest cows this side of the Mississippi! They have the best milk I've tasted in a long time. It's non-homogenized just like your parents and grand-parents had delivered to their houses in the glass bottles, so you have to shake it to distribute the cream, or you can let it settle on top and eat that for super fatty goodness. Chocolate milk, blueberry cheddar, spicy pepper jack, cottage cheese, cream cheese and much more was purchased, all from happy cows fed by all-natural SC grass and weeds. So good. They even have pick your own strawberries starting in May. J and I will be going back.

We headed home and all told drove about 120 miles or so and I was glad to get home and sit while not driving. The rest of the day was more chatting, some dinner, grocery shopping and watching Qualifying for the F1 race outside of Barcelona.

Sunday my folks got up and went to the church that sent a work group down to help them out a few weeks ago. J and I did not go. I watched the race while J slept. We were supposed to grill out but the weather didn't cooperate so I kept everything in the kitchen and still made a delicious meal of turkey burgers, hot italian turkey sausage, sesame ginger chicken drumsticks, roasted vegetables and mac & cheese. Naps after cleaning up and then more resting and relaxing. Then we busted out the Wii and bowled some, played some golf and my dad boxed a couple guys. Since their train left at 5:30 am this morning, Mom and Dad turned in at 7:46 pm, J and I watched NBC's shows from Thursday (30 Rock is all kinds of awesome, as are the others) while J was neck deep in a case of the Sunday blues.

The two other cars on the road this morning didn't notice the black Focus yawning and driving too slow. I dropped Mom and Dad off and drove back to my wife while they awaited the Amtrak to whisk them off to their next adventure while J and I plunge back into our daily routines. I don't have to teach lab anymore! Hooray! Let's see if I can continue that this Fall.

Okay, back to work!

Labels: hiking, Mom and Dad, obituary

J is a big fan of taking classes. We haven't actually taken any classes but she always wants to take a cooking class or a photography class. She's a visual learner and feels she needs to see what's going on before she can grasp the idea and then do it for herself. Since I'm a fan of always learning, I'm on board with these ideas.

We both need to read more. The 7 habits of highly successful people is dry and it feels like an assignment and I haven't read more than 80 pages or so. I still feel successful just not highly successful. It isn't pleasure reading and we both need more of that. Maybe I'll go see what Cynical Chris is reading or has read and try a couple out.

Neither J nor I have littered in years. Actually on our hike last week, we picked up other people's trash. Wouldn't it be nice if everyone did that? There would only be grass and trees and birds outside instead of McDonald's cups, wrappers and cigarette butts. This is obviously excluding landfills but we try and recycle as much as we can to try and keep some of our trash out of those too. We do it for Mother Nature and for you. When you're hiking or biking or driving or walking along wouldn't you rather enjoy nature and its majesty instead of being distracted by that Bud Light can? Or maybe it's just me. Maybe other people can ignore the trash and keep going, but I really can't. I see it and it reminds me that certain people are disgusting and they should be made to live in the filth they toss outdoors.

J's mom was up here a couple weeks ago and we both jumped on her when she threw a cigarette butt on the ground in the parking lot of the airport. I told her my theory that ultimately it will be the trash that smokers leave that gets smoking banned most everywhere, especially outdoors. Can you imagine not smoking in a national park? Well it's coming. Mark my word. They already have smoke-free beaches in Cali and I'm sure only part of the argument was the second-hand smoke blowing into people's faces. Those poor children making their sand castles and digging up cigarette butts. Someone finally thought of the children!

I really need to let Camel know about my theory. I still occasionally smoke because it's fun and cool. Sure I get winded walking up stairs the next day, but that goes away once my lungs heal. I got an email from them asking for me to stand up against a proposed increase in cigarette taxes in South Carolina. I laughed and deleted it. We have some of the lowest cigarette prices in the country and smokers should probably pay a bit more for their habit. Maybe it'll even get a few people to quit?

Camel has been my brand since undergrad. Caveman smoked Camel Lights and they weren't bad and then I had a Camel Special Light and was blown away. Then they kept coming up with different flavors and cool tins and cool designs on their packs. All those coupled with my fond images of Joe Cool, the coolest smoking camel around, and I almost exclusively smoke Camels. I have a friend who works for the OTHER big brand of cigarette, you know, they sponsor a certain red F1 team. Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro? Ring any bells? I'm actually impressed with them the most because they are a title sponsor of the team but can only have "Marlboro" on the race car for 3 out of 16 races. That's panache.

Which brings me to my original topic: getting high. Most people associate that term with mary jane but it fits for anything that gets your heart rate up and you enjoy and want to do again. There are ways to get high drug-free. Homer showed a couple when Moe wouldn't serve him. You can give blood or go up to an elevation where the air is thinner. I hear sky-diving, base jumping and most other extreme, sorry x-treme, sports are a great adrenaline rush. Don't like those ideas? Okay, then we'll move on to putting something into your body. Starbucks thinks caffeine is a great drug, in fact, why aren't you drinking a Pumpkin Spice Latte right now?!?!?! Others enjoy highly processed sugary foods and drinks. Some try over-the-counter pharmaceuticals. There are quite a few. I'll let you search Erowid for those. Still too tame. Now we're getting into the good stuff. Stuff that you either need a doctor's prescription or have to be of legal age to get your hands on. Cigarettes (nicotine!) and alcohol (beer!), hooray! Doctor's can get you lots of other drugs but you usually have to be pretty banged up to get those, so we'll stick with the two that the federal government thinks are safe enough to be distributed pretty much everywhere. Cigarettes make you stink and your lungs forgive you only if you stop for a long time. Alcohol also makes you stink and your liver will forgive you only if you drink in moderation (1-2 a day, whatever pansy liver, I wanna get drunk!)

That's it. Everything else is "bad" and cigarettes and alcohol are "good". Thanks government for thinking of our safety and health and only allowing these two drugs to be bought and sold openly.

Labels: beer, Big Pharma, F1, hiking, litter, medicinal marijuana

I was never really sure if we had a City of Clemson supplied trashcan. There were lots of cans out front of our place but none that had our number on it. So I gave the public works department a call and asked them to check it out. Did they ever. We came home to find all the trash cans with warnings stating that the cans must be removed from the curb by sundown of trash pick up day, but more importantly we have our own trashcan now! And no one can take it away from us! We'll see what happens if someone's can is still on the curbside next Wed. morning. They might just lose their trashcan privileges. Oh no! Sorry neighbor!

J and I went for a nice hike yesterday. We hiked along the Foothills Trail for about 3 miles or so, ate lunch next to the Chattooga River and then hiked back to Focus who was waiting patiently and couldn't wait to get back on the dirt road that led to the trailhead. She even got a little slideways on a couple turns where the road was wide and I could see if someone was coming. Gotta get my co-driver J used to sliding around a little bit. A little sideways is okay but crazy sideways looks cool but just isn't fast.

We had hoped to make it to Big Bend Falls but didn't hike far enough in. We did get to see Lick Log Falls which was tiny and pretty and a vaguely suggestive name, and we actually missed it the first time through but saw it on the way out. Photos will be up this week. Okay, I'm going to go see if Google Earth can help me figure out how far we hiked and how close we were to Big Bend. Next time we'll start a little closer to Big Bend Falls.

Labels: camping, hiking, waterfalls